Practicing Together #9

I noticed sliding down a mountain on your butt will only result in torn trousers and possibly holey undies as well. (In other words, Mt. Monadnock kicked my ass!) Actually, I noticed a bunch of other things, too, like the large numbers of hemlocks, paper & silver birches, and some tiny yellow flowers I haven’t identified as yet.

I also noticed, or more came to the conclusion, that I really can’t learn ogham without building a relationship with the associated tree first. Suddenly, the fews make sense, because they are all on different types of wood, each with its own story. It’s still going to be a slow system for me to learn, and the adage “fast as speeding oak” certainly applies here.

This week, I invite in spontaneity. I have a couple of rituals coming up this weekend and I need to let myself be open to the magic that happens with chance. I had a dream last night that I took everyone down to the Grove for Beltaine, but the pages of the script were scattered all over the ground like leaves. So folks just picked up whatever piece was near them and began reading it. And was still ok!

Ways this could happen: maybe make a script grab bag, where everyone pulls out a strip of paper with a Beltaine phrase or idea, and applies it to his or her ritual part? Or I could just relax and enjoy the experience rather than trying to plan out every last detail.

What went well: I ended up processing a variety of difficult things last week. But I feel purged and more ready to tackle whatever comes next. I also managed to work around the lack of crafting space fairly well, appropriating the kitchen table to finish up a sigil commission.

Updates: The Strategic Sorcery Walpurgisnacht meditation was quite powerful. I really felt recentered in that work. Not to mention the fact that having completed the planetary sigils qualifies as one of my homework assignments. And on the ogham front, I cut three more fews this weekend: barberry for Straif (in lieu of blackthorn), apple for Qwert, and euonymous for Oir. We’re now up to seven out of twenty-five!

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One thought on “Practicing Together #9”

“I also noticed, or more came to the conclusion, that I really can’t learn ogham without building a relationship with the associated tree first. ”

This is basically why I gave up on ogham for divination. So long as I’m living in southern California it’s going to be really, really hard to develop a relationship with the traditional trees or their equivalent; we have trees out here but we don’t have the sort of diversity of such that you find in an area like, say, New England or the British Isles. We have some interesting plants (a lot of cacti) but those don’t exactly make for ogham staves.

I incidentally found the same thing with the runes, that it’s really hard to grasp the concepts unless you’ve experienced them directly, like being in a hailstorm, or how difficult it is to get a fire going from two sticks, or riding a horse.

“I have a couple of rituals coming up this weekend and I need to let myself be open to the magic that happens with chance. ”

*nods* As much as I like planning things, some of the best magic I’ve ever happened has been in the spontaneity of the moment, with something I wasn’t expecting or planning on but happened anyway. I could apply that to a few things in life in general that were and are great blessings but weren’t things I was planning on or had gone looking for. 😉